Bill Tammeus writes about religion and ethics.

December 08, 2012

What churches succeed? 12-8/9-12

In the Nov. 26 issuer of The New Yorker, staff writer Kelefa Sanneh has done a well-reported and insightful piece about the now-famous pastor Rob Bell, author of Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

(The link I've given you to the piece will give you just the start of it. You must be a subscriber to get the rest.)

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The book has caused quite a stir among those Christians who would identify themselves as evangelical, a label once proudly worn by Bell himself. And I've mentioned all that before.

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What I want to focus on instead of that controversy is something Sanneh says toward the end of the piece: "Throughout American history, the most successful church movements have been not the ones that kept up with contemporary culture but the ones that were confident enough to tug hard against it."

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Hmmm, I thought when I read that. Can that be true? Well, I suppose you could argue that the so-called "Great Awakening(s)" in our history tugged hard against the culture, as perhaps did the "Social Gospel" movement of the late 19th and early 20th Century.

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But in many ways those movements were not ultimately successful. Both eventually ran their course, though their core concerns continue to be echoed in this or that corner of the Christian world in America.

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Well, what about either the Fundamentalist movement of the early 20th Century or the Pentecostal movement of roughly the same vintage?

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Yes, both movements certainly had success, but were they really tugging hard against the contemporary culture? That would be a pretty good debate.

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What intrigues me about all of this, however, is that I think you can make the opposite argument about Mainline Protestantism. It reached its peak of attractiveness when it was most closely aligned with the culture in the post-World War II era, up until the 1960s.

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The Presbyterian, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Reformed Church in America, American Baptist and United Church of Christ were rocking then, filled with people who identified closely with the post-war economic boom and the materialistic values it represented -- values rather far removed from the foundational teachings of Jesus.

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It was when those Mainline denominations began to tug hard against the culture by supporting the Civil Rights Movement, by opposing the Vietnam War and by raising serious questions about the consumerist and wasteful nature of capitalism in the U.S. that many members started voting with their feet and leaving because they were not interested in hearing the challenging world that the gospel had to speak about all of this.

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Even today, as most of those churches continue to preach a gospel of love, of openness, of respect for people of other faiths, of avoiding the idea that anyone can fully grasp the infinite God, they continue to suffer, at least by comparison to the churches that are more in tune with the contemporary culture and that demonstrate that by offering simple answers, by demonizing people of other faiths (especially Islam) and by confusing patriotism with religious commitment.

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What will be intriguing to watch is whether the Mainline churches, now that they've finally started to do the right thing by opening up to gays and lesbians, for instance, will gain strength because they are more in tune with the contemporary culture at least on that issue.

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There is a time for faith communities to stand against the culture. Sometimes that draws in members and looks like success based on measurements used by the culture. But sometimes it's paying a costly price for being disciples of a God who is not easy to follow.

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BRUBECK'S INSPIRATION

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If, like me, you were a fan of the now-late Dave Brubeck, you'll be interested in this Religion News Service piece on the spiritual inspiration for some of his work. So honor the man and take some "Time Out," (the name of the first Brubeck album I ever owned) and read it.

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Who is Bill?I'm the former Faith columnist for The Kansas City Star. For a more detailed bio, look under the "Check this out" headline below. My Twitter handle is @BillTammeus. Friend me on Facebook and you'll see this blog every day in your feed.